The Reserve Bank of India has confirmed that in the last four years of the Narendra Modi led government, loan frauds are three times higher than the five years of UPA-II headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
It came in a response to an RTI application filed by economist and activist Prasenjit Bose. The response from the RBI gives details of the loan frauds from 2008-09 to 2017-18. The loans have been taken from foreign banks, nationalised banks, private sector banks, small finance banks and other financial institutions.
|
Year |
Number of loan frauds | Total involved in lakh rupees. |
| 2008-09 | 2066 | 1542080.09 |
| 2009-10 | 2231 | 128283.3 |
| 2010-11 | 2393 | 274022.7 |
| 2011-12 | 1952 | 355075.4 |
| 2012-13 | 2086 | 645524.4 |
| 2013-14 | 1990 | 841208.7 |
| 2014-15 | 2251 | 1712224 |
| 2015-16 | 2125 | 1736807 |
| 2016-17 | 2322 | 2056144 |
| 2017-18 | 2495 | 2246964 |
(Source:Reserve bank of India)
The above table is the RBI response to the RTI filed by Bose which states that in the last four years of the Modi Government, loan frauds have amounted to a colossal 55,000 crore rupees more than the five years of UPA-II.
The RTI activist and economist, Bose said, “Where are the investigating agencies? How many fraudsters have been arrested and prosecuted for their crimes? The Union Finance Ministry must be held accountable for this massive loot of money from the banks and undermining the public sector banking system.”
The Public Sector banks alone amount to 88% of the loan fraud involved. Public Sector Banks in India lost at least 22,743 crore to banking frauds between 2012 and 2016 says an IIM-Bangalore study.
2018 has been a dismal year for the banking sector. Punjab National Bank, the country’s second largest public sector bank had been defrauded for nearly 13,000 crores by diamond jewellers Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Chowsky. The largest lender of the country, State Bank of India is involved in Rs. 824.15-crore bank fraud involving Kanishk Gold private limited.